An attack in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo killed approximately 20 people, according to local sources, who blamed militants connected with the Islamic State organization.
Residents in the Beni district of the unstable North Kivu province blamed the attack on the terrorist organization Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
“The victims were cultivating their fields,” Nicolas Kikuku, mayor of the commune of Oicha, the capital of the Beni territory, told AFP.
He added that 20 deaths had been recorded.
“The enemy always attacks the poor farmers,” the mayor said.
The farmers were killed by gunshot or knife in a village around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Oicha, where most of the bodies were brought.
The mayor was not able to specify the exact date of their death.
“Nineteen bodies were brought to the morgue last night,” Darius Syaira, civil society representative for Beni told AFP.
“This is a provisional report, because we have been informed of other bodies” in the same area, he added.
“We are asking for military reinforcements” in this region west of Oicha “to go on the offensive against the ADF who are causing us grief at all times,” Syaira said.
The ADF, which began as a group of mostly Muslim Ugandan rebels, has maintained a foothold in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for the past three decades, killing thousands of civilians.
Since the end of 2021, the Congolese and Ugandan militaries have been waging coordinated operations against the ADF in North Kivu and the neighboring province of Ituri, but have unable to halt the fatal attacks on civilians.
In 2019, the ADF professed allegiance to the Islamic State, which refers to them as its central African branch.
The ADF has been accused of massacring Congolese civilians and orchestrating attacks in adjacent Uganda.